Tuesday- Little light in a Big mess

I'm not going to the contaminated apartment today. I got a lot done there yesterday and was happy to finish my grocery shopping at the Reading Terminal Market (if you can swoon for a grocery, I do swoon and sing for this one), come home, make a nice dinner, work on homework with the girls and read a book before bed time. I also took Bunny to get her ears pierced but she backed out just after they put the little purple dots on her ears. I bought her magnetic earrings instead. She was really disappointed in herself and we had a long talk about not doing things until you feel ready to do them. I think that she's feeling pressure because the other girls in her class have their ears done already.

I wish that I never had to go back to the apartment again.

Did I mention yesterday that they said that we'd have to pay for these ridiculous bulk trash fees if we wanted to get rid of our contaminated things? I was like, "This building did this to us. It's costing thousands of dollars. My children no longer have ANY toys or books. We don't have a BED. I am not paying you one penny to solve this problem." And then I started crying and was like, "you know.... I'm never like this... but I'm so angry..." If anything, they should be glad that we're taking care of it and not just abandoning everything that we don't want and letting them take it out.

So, we decided to take everything to a sanitation facility to be destroyed or thrown in a big pile of crap... or whatever happens to your stuff when you do that. It will be the last thing that we do on our moving day (Saturday).

Surprisingly, even while living with just a folding card table, a few folding chairs and some mattresses on the floor... I am somehow happier than I was in my apartment. I really like it here. I know that I've complained about the neighborhood, and it is a little bit sketchy. It gets worse as you go south, and because of all the one way streets in this city you have to go south of where we live and then wind around to come back up to our house. My neighbors are all really friendly. There are lots of kids. It's quiet (way quieter than living in Center City).

Better still, cooking in my kitchen was a dream. The appliances are so beautiful and such good quality.

As soon as this moving nightmare is over, I think that we'll be really happy here.